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Empatheatre STAND Online Summer School
Empatheatre STAND Online Summer School
The Empatheatre Team were delighted to be invited by the Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation to create and teach a four-part course on their methodology as part of their Online summer school programme which ran from the 9th the 18th March 2021.
The STAND summer school programme was created to offer participants the opportunity to upskill themselves and acquire insights into how to strategize and think innovatively around the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The foundation, under the expertise of Mike Van Graan, commissioned and curated a dynamic series of online courses throughout March, which ranged from creative theatre skills, to business and entrepreneurial skills, contractual and intellectual property knowledge. Bursaries were made available to cover both data participation costs as well as fees for those who required assistance.
For more information on this wonderful organization please visit www.standfoundation.org.za
Our Empatheatre Zoom course was attended by over thirty practitioners and participants ranging from students, actors, learners, drama-teachers and lecturers, academics, puppeteers and activists from across South African and as far afield as Dublin, Ireland.
The facilitators Neil Coppen, Dylan McGarry and Mpume Mthombeni guided participants’ through an interactive series of workshops and discussions around their research-based, theatre-making methodology, covering aspects of the Empatheatre theatre-making process including action-based research, identifying matters of concern, finding the central image and how to craft and shape research data into an engrossing true-to-life theatrical experience.
Over the duration of the four, two-hour sessions, participants were encouraged to develop their own theatrical idea or concept and receive feedback from facilitators and the rest of the group. The Empatheatre team were greatly encouraged by the interest and responses generated by the course and will be announcing new dates shortly for a second online iteration.
Reflecting on the course, Dublin based practitioner and theatre-maker Aideen Wylde commented:
“For me it was just an amazing opportunity, not only to experience the work that you do, but also to encounter a community of artists and makers working in a cultural context that is different to mine. I found the company's generosity in sharing every detail of the making process refreshing and inspiring, and the shared facilitation of the material from the different making perspectives was engaging and enriching. The parts that resonated with me were those around the economy of symbolism; tapping into what is essential; the unpredictability of the post-show discussions and how that might work in an Irish context; also what are the topical issues here that would benefit from applying methodologies such as Empatheatre?”
Another exciting outcome of this project is that the Empatheatre team will be initiating a monthly 'community of practice' Zoom meeting platform whereby practitioners from around the world can meet and reflect further on each other’s work and processes. If you would like to join these sessions and be included in the mailing list please drop us a line in the contact section of our website.
Empatheatre with support from the Bertha House, is excited to be hosting a screening and post-film discussion around Complicite’s film Can I Live? at the Bertha House cinema in Cape Town on the 12th of October from 16:00 - 19:30.
Empatheatre and Mbazwana Creative Arts (MCA)in association with Amehlo Productions are proud to present a short documentary film centring on the devising of their acclaimed musical theatrical production Umkhosi Wenala .
How do we make sense of the violent histories that mark our past? This play, Isidlamlilo, forces us to engage seriously with this question. Depending on your own relationship with our violent history, this play awakens a profound and at times unsettling realization that history is a living breathing force in all our lives. Isidlamlilo is set in the dying days of Apartheid, and in the present democratic South Africa.